Chemical Incident Reporting – Week of 4-1-23

NOTE: See here for series background.

Newfane, NY, March 30^th, 2023

News reports here, here and here

Explosions and fire reportedly caused by self-reacting organic peroxide in 5-gal containers. No reports of injury, no damage estimates, no photos of damage to facilities.

May be a CSB reportable depending on the damage to the facility.

Richmond, Ind, April 11^th thru 13^th, 2023

News reports here, here and here

Large fire at a plastic recycling plant. No reports of injury, no damage estimates but they probably exceed CSB reporting minimums as the facility and its inventory are destroyed.

Probably a CSB reportable.

Dimmitt, Texas, April 11^th, 2023

News reports here, here, and here

Explosion and fire at dairy farm. 1 hospitalized, 18,000 cattle killer/injured

CSB reportable.

Commentary

Since two of these incidents were at facilities that are normally considered to be chemical facilities, I would suspect that none of the owner were probably aware of their potential Chemical Safety Board incident reporting responsibilities.

The Richmond, IN incident is a good example of why the CSB should be able to include incidental community costs in the determination of what is a reportable incident. There were fourteen acres of burning plastic with multiple fire agencies involved and a couple thousand people evacuated for three-days due to the incident. Adding incidental incident costs to the equation would probably require congressional action.